sea must never be jagged and torn by the impetuous assaults or the silent underminings of waves; if violent rains and tempests must not wash down the earth and gravel from the tops of some of those mountains, and expose their naked ribs to the face of the sun; if the seeds of subterraneous minerals must not ferment, and sometimes cause earthquakes and furious eruptions of volcanos, and tumble down broken rocks, and lay them in confusion; then either all things must have been overruled miraculously by the immediate interposition of God, without any mechanical affections or settled laws of nature, or else the body of the earth must have been as fixed as gold, or as hard as adamant, and wholly unfit for human* habitation. So that if it was good in the sight of God,f that the present plants and animals, and human souls united to flesh and blood, should be upon this earth under a settled constitution of nature; these supposed inconveniences, as they were foreseen and permitted by the Author of that nature, as necessary consequences of such a constitution, so they cannot infer the least imperfection in his wisdom and goodness and to murmur at them is as unreasonable as to complain that he hath made us men, and not angels; that he hath placed us upon this planet, and not upon some other, in this or another system, which may be thought better than Let them also consider, that this objected deformity is in our imaginations only, and not really in thingst themselves. There is no universal reason (I mean such as is not confined to human fancy, but will reach through the whole intellectual universe,) that a figure by us called regular, which hath equal sides and angles, is absolutely more beautiful than any irregular one. All pulchritude is relative; and all bodies are truly and physically beautiful under all possible shapes and proportions, that are good in their kind, that are fit for their proper uses and ends of their natures. We ought not then to believe that the banks of the ocean are really deformed, because they have not the form of a regular bulwark; nor ours. [* human; 1st ed. "our."-D.] [ in things; 1st ed. "in the things."--D.] f Gen. i. that the mountains are out of shape,* because they are not exact pyramids or cones; nor that the stars are unskilfully placed, because they are not all situated at uniform distance.† These are not natural irregularities, but with respect to our fancies only; nor are they incommodious to the true uses of life and the designs of man's being on the earth. And let them further consider, that these ranges of barren mountains, by condensing the vapours, and producing rains, and fountains, and rivers, give the very plains and valleys themselves that fertility they boast of; that those hills§ and mountains supply us and the stock of nature with a great variety of excellent plants. If there were no inequalities in the surface of the earth, nor in the seasons of the year, we should lose a considerable share of the vegetable kingdom: for all plants will not grow in an uniform level and the same temper of soil, nor with the same degree of heat. Nay, let them lastly consider, that to those hills and mountains we are obliged for all our metals, and with them for all the conveniences and comforts of life. To deprive us of metals is to make us mere savages; to change our corn or rice for the old Arcadian diet, our houses and cities for dens and caves, and our clothing for skins of beasts; 'tis to bereave us of all arts and sciences, of history and letters; nay, of revealed religion too, that inestimable favour of heaven: for, without the benefit of letters, the whole Gospel would be a mere¶ tradition and old cabbala, without certainty, without authority. Who would part with these solid and substantial blessings for the little fantastical pleasantness of a smooth uniform convexity [* out of shape; 1st ed. "mishapen."-D.] [t distance; 1st ed. "distances."-D.] [ earth. And let them further consider; 1st ed. "earth. Let them consider."-D.] [§ boast of; that those hills; 1st ed. boast of. Let them consider that those hills."-D.] [heat. Nay, let them lastly consider; 1st ed. "heat. sider."—D.] Let them con [¶heaven: for, without the benefit of letters, the whole Gospel would be a mere; 1st ed. "by making the whole Gospel a mere."-D.] and rotundity of a globe? And yet the misfortune of it is, that the pleasant view of their* imaginary globe, as well as the deformed spectacle of ourt true one, is founded upon impossible suppositions. For that‡ equal convexity could never be seen and enjoyed by any man living. The inhabitants of such an earth could have only the short prospect of a little circular plane about three miles around them; though neither woods, nor hedges, nor artificial banks, should intercept it; which little, too, would appear to have an acclivity on all sides from the spectators; so that every man would have the displeasures of fancying himself the lowest, and that he always dwelt and moved in a bottom. Nay, considering that in such a constitution of the earth they could have no means nor instruments of mathematical knowledge, there is great reason to believe, that the period of the final dissolution might overtake them, ere they would have known or had any suspicion that they walked upon a round ball. Must we, therefore, to make this convexity of the earth discernible to the eye, suppose a man to be lifted up a great height in the air, that he may have a very spacious horizon under one view? But then, again, because of the distance, the convexity and gibbousness would vanish away; he would only see below him a great circular flat, as level, to his thinking, as the face of the moon. Are there then such ravishing charms in a dull, unvaried flat, to make a sufficient compensation for the chief things of the ancient mountains, and for the precious things of the lasting hills? Nay, we appeal to the sentence of mankind, if a land of hills and valleys has not more pleasure too, and beauty, than an uniform flat? which flat, if ever it may be said to be very delightful, is then only, when 'tis viewed from [* their; 1st ed. " this."-D.] [ that; 1st ed. "this."-D.] [t our; 1st ed. "the."-D.] [§ displeasure; 1st ed. "satisfaction."-D.] Deut. xxxiii. 15. [ valleys has not more pleasure too, and beauty, than an uniform flat? which flat, if ever; 1st ed. "valleys, with an infinite variety of scenes and prospects, besides the profit that accrues from it, have not more of beauty too, and pleasantness, than a wide uniform plain; which if ever."-D.] the top of a hill. What were the Tempe of Thessaly, so celebrated in ancient story for their unparalleled pleasantness, but a vale divided with a river and terminated with hills? Are not all the descriptions of poets embellished with such ideas, when they would represent any places of superlative delight, any* blissful seats of the Muses or the Nymphs, any sacred habitations of gods or goddesses? They will never admit that a wide flat can be pleasant, no, not in the very Elysian fields; but these,† too, must be diversified with depressed valleys and swelling ascents. They cannot imagine even Paradise to be a place of pleasure, nor heaven itself to be heaven without them. Let this, therefore, be another argument of the divine wisdom and goodness, that the surface of the earth is not uniformly convex, (as many think it would naturally have been, if mechanically formed by a chaos,) but distinguished with mountains and valleys, and furrowed from pole to pole with the deep channel of the sea; and that, because of the Tò BeλTíov, it is better that it should be so. Give me leave to make one short inference from what has been said, which shall finish this present discourse, and with it our task for the year. We have clearly discovered many final causes and characters of wisdom and contrivance in the frame of the inanimate world; as well as in the organical fabric of the bodies of animals. Now, from hence ariseth a new and invincible argument, that the present frame of the h Vide Ælian. Var. Hist. lib. iii. [cap. i.-D.] [* any; 1st ed. "and.”—D.] i At pater Anchises penitus convalle virenti. Virg. Æn. vi. [679.-D.] Et ibid. [676.-D.] Hoc superate jugum. Et ibid. [754.-D.] Et tumulum capit. [t these; 1st ed. " those."-D.] Flowers worthy of paradise, which not nice art Paradise Lost, lib. iv. [241.-D.] For earth hath this variety from heaven world hath not existed from all eternity. For such an usefulness of things, or a fitness of means to ends, as neither proceeds from the necessity of their beings, nor can happen to them by chance, doth necessarily infer that there was an intelligent Being, which was the author and contriver of that usefulness. We have formerly demonstrated,m that the body of a man, which consists of an incomprehensible variety of parts, all admirably fitted to their peculiar functions and the conservation of the whole, could no more be formed fortuitously than the Æneis of Virgil, or any other long poem with good sense and just measures, could be composed by the casual combinations of letters. Now, to pursue this comparison; as it is utterly impossible to be believed, that such a poem may have been eternal, transcribed from copy to copy without any first author and original; so it is equally incredible and impossible, that the fabric of human bodies, which hath such excellent and divine artifice, and, if I may so say, such good sense, and true syntax, and harmonious measures in its constitution, should be propagated and transcribed from father to son without a first parent and creator of it. An eternal usefulness of things, an eternal good sense, cannot possibly be conceived without an eternal wisdom and understanding. But that can be no other than that eternal and omnipotent God, that by wisdom hath founded the earth, and by understanding hath established the heavens:n to whom be all honour, and glory, and praise, and adoration, from henceforth and for evermore. Amen. |